Nail Biter
by Singerdiva01
Summary: Kara hadn't bitten her nails since she met Laura but worry drives her back to old habits. What she calls "punishment," Laura considers celebration. (Established Laura/Kara, no attacks AU set on Caprica)


Kara hadn't bitten her nails off so low she bled since she was a kid. In fact she'd barely bitten them at all after Laura came along and half jokingly threatened her with weekly manicures unless she kicked the habit for good.

She studied the blood pooling at the cuticle of her shaking right index finger for just a moment before wiping it away a little too forcefully on her uniform pants. She pushed the button on her phone to check the time and let out a loud huff of air when it told her only two minutes had passed since the last time she looked.

A week and a half ago, no length of time could have been more tortuous than the days between finding the lump in Laura's left breast and the biopsy. Then there was absolutely nothing worse than sitting in that waiting room with the stupid pink paneling for a doctor to come out and tell her the procedure was over. Three days of strained normalcy between them while they waited for the results would have taken the cake just yesterday but now she knew these last hours of not knowing whether or not her life was all but over were absolutely, without a doubt the worst of her life.

She'd been trying all morning not to think of the very real possibility there could be things ahead that would trump this. "Wait to panic until we know for sure," Laura said. Kara had been almost angry at how calmly she'd dressed for work this morning, making tea and doing yoga just like normal when absolutely nothing about today was remotely normal. She'd been very close to asking if she could go and sit on the couch in Laura's office so she wouldn't have to sit in her own much smaller one and, well, do exactly what she was doing now.

Three more minutes had gone by when she jabbed the phone again. She was so involved in her staring match with the numbers on the screen that she jumped when it lit up and blasted Laura's distinctive ring tone at twice its normal volume. Her fingers were shaking so badly she almost accidentally rejected the call.

"Hey," she said, her voice much hoarser and breathy than she intended. Laura's silky alto drifted over the line.

"Hey, honey. How's your day going?"

Kara bit back a growl, instead letting loose a sound that resembled a whimper. "Gods, Laura," she managed to ground out before her breaths started coming so fast she couldn't even think words, much less form them.

Laura's laugh registered faintly and she was halfway through a sentence before Kara could actually focus on what she was saying.

"...were negative this time, it was benign. Of course, because of my history, I'll need to go back in three months for more tests…"

iBenign. Benign. Benign./i Kara repeated it over and over again with each strained breath. She wasn't sure if it was Laura saying her name or the sharp pain of reopening the tiny wound on the finger she was digging into her thigh that brought her back to reality.

"Kara, are you there? Please say something, honey, you're scaring me."

The sheer absurdity of ithati/ let loose the floodgates, although Kara would have sworn to anyone not there to see the tears streaking down her face that she was just laughing her relief. She hoped Laura thought so, at least, and she may have because she was still giggling by the time Kara calmed enough to use words.

"Oh, thank Gods, Laura. Thank Gods." Not near eloquent enough to express her sheer elation but Laura didn't love her for her speech making skills. She tilted back her phone to check the time, far more kindly than before. "Any chance you can cut out early to celebrate?"

Laura hummed in response. "No, my next meeting is waiting outside and I've got two more after that but, trust me, tonight we can celebrate however you want."

There was a seductive note in her voice and Kara's heart skipped a beat. She'd been the one who'd cut off sex for the past two weeks, even as Laura pleaded and reassured and even got angry, but just the idea of being able to frak her girlfriend senseless without thinking she'd hurt her somehow made her shiver with anticipation.

She'd already started mapping out their celebration in her head before she even hung up the phone.

* * *

Kara wanted nothing more than to stay in bed all day and perform hourly recreations of last night's activities on every original surface but she'd made a promise. Sure, it was made in a lust drunk haze after Laura had playfully chided her for biting her nails to the nub - "but, honey, I like you to have nails so I can feel them scraping down my back" - but it was a deal and if Laura wanted to celebrate her new lease on life with a day at the spa, well, she'd survive. She made a private promise to even pretend to enjoy it.

She'd almost broken it straight off when Laura signed her up for a full body massage while she went off for some complicated sounding facial. (Why the hell would a woman who hated mud so much willingly pay an exorbitant amount of money to have it rubbed all over her face?) She tried to play off her discomfort as solidarity - if Laura couldn't lay on her still healing chest yet, she'd forgo a massage as well - but Laura just rolled her eyes and gently shoved Kara in the direction of an ominous looking woman holding out a robe.

Marta, whose name and size and accent all but screamed stereotype, turned out to be much kinder than the masseurs in the movies. She seemed to realize that was the closest the pilot had ever gotten to such pampering when Kara obediently disrobed and lay on top of the blanket rather than under it. Still, even after being reassured over and over that she could express her discomfort any time, it still took her thirty minutes to relax into the bed and start to enjoy the rough, practiced kneading on her back and neck.

Eventually, she let her thoughts drift to the previous evening. Laura pressing her up against the wall and digging her hand between her legs before she's even taken off her heels. Her soft, needy moans as Kara maneuvered her to the couch and divested her of those and every other piece of her workplace armor. Her keening cries when she came there then in the bed then in the bath before that final exquisite time tangled in the sheets again.

It was only when Marta cleared her throat that she realized it was her who was actually moaning. She immediately stilled her hips, which she'd been grinding into the table, and muttered an apology before burying her face deeper into the towel. She was still blushing, and so was Marta to be honest, by the time the alarm dinged and the whole torturous experience was over.

She could have killed Laura if the whole frakking point wasn't celebrating her being alive.

All thoughts of death, whether by means of murder or cancer, flew out of her mind when she was ushered into yet another room by yet another uniform clad attendant. Laura looked positively radiant and so very beautifully, wonderfully alive reclining in a chair like contraption that had her feet soaking in a whirling tub of purple bubbles.

She opened her eyes when Kara was pushed down into the matching device beside her. She smiled lazily and Kara felt the throbbing between her legs start up all over again.

"Enjoy your massage, honey?" Her voice was low and seductive and Kara had to fight off that urge she'd banished just moments before as understanding dawned.

"Yes, darling," she crooned in that voice she used when she kidded her well heeled girlfriend about being hoity toity. "It was absolutely marvelous."

Laura's eyes widened and she'd almost worked herself into one her legendary giggling fits by the time two more attendants entered the room. They greeted Laura as 'Madame Secretary' and Kara as simply 'ma'am' but the pilot had only a second to wonder just how long Laura had been subjecting herself to this stuff before the Secretary was giving orders in her usual kind but firm tone.

"We'll both have the lavender pedicure and manicures. I'll have my usual color and Kara, well," she reached over to grasp Kara's hand. She pursed her lips and hummed disapprovingly at the damage she saw there. "Make that one manicure and the shortest of tips for this one here." She looked up at the eager woman and they shared a long suffering look. "We're trying to break a bad habit."

The whole ordeal took forever and she had frakking pink - pink! - toes at the end but Kara almost enjoyed it due in sole part to the pleased little noises Laura made throughout, especially when she'd held up Kara's hand and pronounced her ridiculously adorned fingers 'perfect.'

Her real reward, however, came later when she was kissing the red scratches up and down Laura's back before giving into her lover's plaintive pleas to leave even more.


End file.
